


Cures For What Ails You

by MercuryMapleKey



Category: Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers Animated (2007), Transformers: Beast Wars, Transformers: Robots in Disguise (2015), Transformers: Shattered Glass
Genre: Angst, Arguments, F/M, Ficlet Collection, Fluff, Gen, M/M, Many AU's, Other, Psychological Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-06
Updated: 2016-02-20
Packaged: 2018-03-29 08:18:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 22
Words: 17,248
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3889132
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MercuryMapleKey/pseuds/MercuryMapleKey
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of ficlets done for a 30 day challenge and then some. Involving cybertronians from different continuities in a multitude of situations.<br/>This will continue to be updated regularly throughout the month, then periodically from that point on.<br/>CURRENTLY FEATURING: Beast Wars!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. 0.10 -- Baby; Blurr/Shockwave (+Baby)

**Author's Note:**

> Starting off the 30 day challenge with some Blurr/Shockwave. There's a baby in this one. And angst. Going by the assumption that whoever carries the sparkling would be called something that roughly translates to mom by said sparkling. (And the sire(s) would be called various translations of dad).

               “No!”

               The toy went hurdling across the room once more. With a level of patience Blurr hadn’t known he possessed until the creation of his little one resisted the urge to take the three strides across the room to pick up the toy himself and instead knelt down to his sparkling’s level and tried reason. “Velocity, we all have to clean up after ourselves. Please go pick your toy up and put it away in its bin.” The toy was a simplified caricaturized doll of an insecticon, Velocity had seen it at the store one day and had refused to put it down: it was the only toy that looked like her. It had antenna.

               And now it was lying in a heap against the wall. Velocity fell down to a sit and retained her optic resolutely on her creator, her own stubby little antenna shivered. The same word dropped from her vocaliser as had been doing so all day: “No.”

               She could be stubborn at the best of times (reminiscent of one if not both of her creators) but today had been particularly trying. From start to finish every activity had been a challenge. It wasn’t Velocity’s fault that they couldn’t go outside without more than a few dirty looks or off-colour comments thrown their way, she was so young that she likely didn’t even notice it. But Blurr did. He had found himself forced to abandon the store entirely today leaving their energon additives behind, and Velocity had come home only to pitch a fit over her toys. It was frustrating for the both of them.

               But they were all they had for each other. With a deep vent and a constant internal reminder that fighting back wouldn’t help anything Blurr tried again.

               “Go pick up your toy.”

               “No wanna!”

               This time she accented her refusal by pounding her tiny fist on the floor. Blurr shook his helm. “Why don’t you want to? You could have been done by now if you had just done what I asked the first time I did so.”

               “No!”

               There were only so many times Blurr could stand to hear that word in that tone, but Velocity wouldn’t let up for a nanoklik. What she needed was a nap. Blurr reached out to pick up his overtired sparkling and found his servos swatted away instead.

               “Go away!”

               “Velocity!” Words came faster than actions, faster than he could regulate his emotions, and Blurr was already berating his child by the time his arms darted back in to pick the toddler up. “First of all you do not hit anyone! I never want to see you do that again do you understand me; and secondly I am not going anywhere but _you_ are going straight into recharge and you can clean up your toys after you’ve had a nap because we _both_ need it!”

               It wasn’t often that Blurr was pushed to the point of losing his temper with his little one. He had worked for the government and the Elite Guard and had been under the employ of some mechs (now Magnus) who required a great deal more patience to effectively co-operate with. But Blurr was young, too young really, and he was tired. Between Longarm’s betrayal and subsequent incarceration as Shockwave, and the resulting potential scandal that had given Autobot Command a near absolute level of control over his career Blurr hadn’t received much in the way of support with regards to Velocity. There was no lie to it – it was hard. It was really hard.

               Harder still when Velocity decided to break down into big tears of her own, crying in her creator’s arms and _still_ pushing away at him. She needed a nap, some time to cool down, she needed to forget about the people – adults and sparklings alike – who were always staring at her like she didn’t belong. Blurr would have done nearly anything to give it to her, Velocity pulled her helm up to glare up at him with one big wet optic and said the only words Blurr wasn’t prepared to hear.

               “I want mama!”

               Blurr nearly dropped her. He stopped dead on the way to her room to look down at her.

               “You what?” It was neither an angry nor a harshly spoken question; only quiet. He had hoped she didn’t remember him.

               But nothing was that easy. “I want mama!” Velocity kicked weakly against his side and sobbed wet coolant against his plating. She was tired. He didn’t know what to say.

               “Velocity, I—you can’t, he isn’t—“

               “No! I want mama! Go away!” It was too much. With words and wailing alone Velocity had browbeat her creator into submission, and Blurr had no more left to give.

               She was just a child throwing a tantrum. She didn’t mean what she was saying. Blurr knew that. The fact didn’t allow his spark to catch any less within his throat. Quickly he dropped Velocity off on her little berth and left her in her room to scream and cry it out – there was nothing else he could manage in the moment. He should have done the right thing. He should have been firm with her, and not allow these tantrums to initiate in the first place, but how could he be the one to tell his own sparkling that she’d never get to meet her carrier?

               It was said that bonds were formed between newsparks and the mechs they budded and grew off of, it didn’t happen all the time just often enough that Blurr should have known to expect it. Instead his baby had gotten stuck with the creator she didn’t even like.

               Velocity was stubborn and spirited and sweet, and with every passing day she looked more and more like Shockwave did. There wasn’t a trace of Longarm in her at all. She was Shockwave’s; everyone knew it, even Velocity herself. Blurr was the only one still pretending that she couldn’t see it. She missed him.

                There was no forcing down the sting in his optics as Blurr picked up Velocity’s toys to keep himself busy. The insecticon went in last, all thick dark plating, dramatic angles, and big rubber claws. It looked nothing like Longarm either.

                He didn’t know what to do.  
  



	2. 0.20 -- Romance; Blurr/Rodimus

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is just fluff.

Blurr had never been huge into the fantasies of true love and storybook romance; that is, he’d never found himself to be much of a candidate for it. He just wasn’t built with it in mind. Old fashioned candle-lit dinners meant having the constitution to order more than two things off of any given menu, sitting through shows meant literally _sitting_ still and straight and interested throughout the entire event, and Blurr had always just assumed he had no part in that style of living. Not matter how charming he found the thought to be.

               What he hadn’t counted on however was Rodimus being just as terrible at prescribed fairy tale romance and three times as fond of it. He tried harder out of the bot of them; picked out what he liked, tossed aside what he didn’t, and laughed his way through his own clichés and gestures even when they fell flat. Blurr was never expected to do anything more than have fun with it, which turned out to never be a tall order in the least.

               Generally speaking of course.

               “Rodimus! You know I really meant it when I said I couldn’t dance, you should have listened to me then because now you’ve done nothing but waste money and time setting this whole thing up.” It wasn’t often they were both on planet at the same time. While that did nothing to hurt their blooming relationship – a cybertronian’s longevity bore patience in personal relationships at the very least – it _did_ mean that Rodimus tended to go all out when he got the chance. Even more than usual. Somehow he’d put together an entire little dance hall for the two of them, which was romantic and extravagant and entirely too much for what was required. Rodimus had beamed when Blurr told him that – repeatedly – and insisted that it hadn’t been that much work for anyone. There were certainly perks to being a Prime but somehow Rodimus always managed to go the extra mile, all of which summed up to mean nothing when Blurr still couldn’t keep pace to save his life.

               That didn’t seem to stop Rodimus from dropping both servos around Blurr’s waist and pecking him full on the lips however. Everything about him was infectious.

               “This is the best time to learn then isn’t it?” He winked. “No one will see you but me, and I promise not to laugh too hard.”

               “How very endearing.” Blurr allowed the Prime to pull him backwards through a lazy turn and tried to move in time with it. It felt slow and awkward, but so did the music around them; he had never stayed longer than necessary for appearances at formal functions.

               “Yeah, I figured we’d do something more private this time around.” Rodimus’ voice was low and smooth over the chords that lilted around them; intimate, even through his teasing. “You know, since last time you had to challenge the entire track.” He spun Blurr out and laced their fingers together on the return to put them both in something of a waltz position. The only derivation being the frequency in which his pedes almost or successfully collided with Blurr’s.

               There was no one around to see them at all, just the setting as a suggestion. Blurr pulled himself to lead and Rodimus followed without missing a beat. He picked up the pace. “I didn’t challenge anybody Rodimus.” Blurr tried for a scowl and found he couldn’t keep it anyhow. Their music might as well have been lost for all that he was keeping time to it. Rodimus only followed, stumbling to catch up and growing more amused by the nanoklik. “I was merely pointing out what bad _form_ all those bots had for racers – if you could truly call them that, I wouldn’t – and that you’d never see such a blatant disregard for conduct if any of them had had any experience professionally. They might have been making a mockery of the sport, but _you_ were the one who decided it was a personal challenge and put me out there.”

               He had given up tempo altogether in his argument and twirled Rodimus around in time to his words instead, hips swiveling in a way that was decidedly inappropriate for the dance they were in. It was fast and fun and silly, and that seemed to be the turn every one of their dates took at one point or another.

               Rodimus pulled Blurr against him to keep from tripping over his own pedes again and laughed against his audio. “You beat them all, didn’t you?” Blurr had of course, and spectacularly. “You looked great.” Rodimus emphasized his observation with a slow trail of his servo down Blurr’s back and the speedster jolted a laugh and pushed him back into a clumsy dip. He’d always wanted to do that.

               “You don’t know how to dance either, do you? Don’t bother lying to me.” In the dimmed and sparkling lights around them Rodimus’ smile looked light and beautiful. He was beautiful, even as that smile took on an air of a smirk.

               “Nope. But I figured you weren’t much better.”

It was romance, in a sense. Blurr dropped Rodimus on the floor and got pulled down by the servo for his trouble.

              


	3. 0.30 -- Frightened; Longarm/Waspinator

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This one's on the dark side. Nothing graphic, however, it's all just hinted at. 
> 
> Something of an Au where Longarm has not yet been discovered to be the spy, but Waspinator's name has been cleared regardless. Waspinator was captured at some point after Predacons Rising and returned to Cybertron where he's currently in a mental hostpital.

               “There’s a visitor who would like to see you.”

               “Waspinator doesn’t want any visitors.”

               As with everything else, that was just too bad for Waspinator. The medbots didn’t care, they never cared. Waspinator knew a prison when he was held in one. He wasn’t going to go, he hated visitors, he told them so.

               Ten kliks later found Waspinator at a long white table in a small white room. An overly calm aide stood at a safe distance and explained to him in slow simple words how things would work. There would be two guards standing by for his protection. He was bound fast to his seat and muzzled for his protection. Liars. They were all liars. Waspinator had none of his servos free to flip them the gestured he would have liked and was instead constrained to buzzing angrily. It worked no wonders.

               The aide left the room and Waspinator thought about his revenge.

               A new bot, short, wide, and otherwise unremarkable entered and he flicked his wings. Familiar. It was too familiar.

               The two guards turned and left and his fuel lines froze.

               He remembered who he was.

               “Wasp. It’s been so long since we’ve had the opportunity to see each other face to face.” Longarm stood with his optics dim and his servos behind his back. “Let me be the first to express my condolences for the previous intelligence division who played a heavy hand in your wrongful imprisonment. You’ll find no further mistakes to be made under its new management.”

               He was so small. Waspinator was so big – now. But that wasn’t it, that hadn’t been it. There was no one else in the room and no one outside the door and no one who could see them. And Waspinator had nothing he could say.

               Longarm continued, crossing the small room in a few easy strides. He didn’t speak through his mouth.

“I must admit I was surprised to hear you had been returned to Cybertron at all, much less in the form of a techno-organic.” No one saw what happened. No one knew who he was. Waspinator stuck out like a sore thumb, and when Longarm placed his servo on the white table – it was the only thing between them – he knew he had nowhere to go. “I do believe I can help you, Wasp.” His voice changed as he did.

“No!” Breath hitching, optics flaring, Waspinator ran cold with nowhere to run. “Waspinator doesn’t want help!” His cell was so tiny, and Longarm was so huge. There was nowhere to go.

               He had been here before.

               “Are you afraid? You have no reason to be.”

               Lying again. Waspinator thrummed with inert energy. He could not move, he could not scream or fight, he could only watch as Longarm made his way around the table and towards him. Every step was another sentence, every glance a reminder. Waspinator was restrained for his own protection. Wasp had been restrained as his own punishment.

               A servo to his leg, organic and warm, and Waspinator flinched back with everything he could. It was a prison. He was back in the stockades again.

               “Don’t touch Wasp!” Wasp was scared. Waspinator was scared. It had never worked before.

               It didn’t work now. Waspinator was tiny and hated and helpless again, he was none of the power he had suffered for; none of the terror he had inflicted in his rage. Longarm grabbed him by the muzzle and forced him to look him in the optic. His words were calm. His tone was dangerous. “Wasp, you should know full well by now that I do not tolerate anything less than obedience from you.”

               Obedience meant allowing Longarm to soothe a servo along the inside of Waspinator’s thin exoskeleton thigh, it meant answering questions with the prescribed answers.

Longarm’s optic glowed dim and red and Waspinator froe under it. “Now, I am not the one responsible for what’s been done to you, am I?”

As Longarm’s servo probed deeper along transformation seams that served now as nothing but a reminder to his previous life Waspinator’s vocaliser stalled. He found it again. “No.”

“That’s right. Who’s to blame? Who betrayed you to me?”

“Bumble-bot.”

It was Bumble bot. It was always Bumble-bot. He had ruined Wasp’s life, he had cost Wasp everything; if Bumble-bot hadn’t condemned Wasp to the stockades then Longarm never would have come for him. Waspinator wanted nothing more than to kill the one who had done this to him. Bumble-bot. He had forgotten how many years he’d been waiting to slag him.

Longarm praised him for the correct answer. Waspinator tried to make himself invisible.

He would come again. That was the promise he made; he would save Waspinator from the Facility. It was only a matter of time, with each passing klik a silent reminder of the one that followed. Another sentence.

There was nowhere Waspinator could go.  


	4. 0.40 -- Fake; Strongarm/Sideswipe

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is I guess a pre-ship fight. Arguments ensue, like always with those two.

               Stakeout. In the endless list of all the terrible jobs that Bumblebee had for them to do there was only one worse than double shifts of patrol: the stakeout. Given its name, you would have thought it would have been something cooler. But it wasn’t – nothing but hiding out in the bushes and waiting for the _off chance_ that some Decepticon would stumble into their bait… Talk about boring.

               “Sideswipe! We’re _supposed_ to be on alert, not using our advantage to take a nap. The Decepticon could show up any minute!”

               And there was Strongarm. Strongarm came part in parcel with stakeouts too. Unfortunately.

               Throwing his pedes up on the low handing fork of a large tree to properly show just how little he thought of her orders, Sideswipe stretched his arms behind his helm and scoffed. “No they wont, and let me tell you why.” He paused to make sure he had Strongarm’s attention – he did – and kept going. “You and me, we’re the B-team. Bumblebee knows that there’s hardly any chance the Con’s gonna show up on this side of the dam, he’s just using us to cover his bases. Grimlock is his go to mech.” It was true, to an extent. Not that he cared, he would have told her the sky was orange for the right reaction.

               And Strongarm delivered. She was thoroughly unimpressed. He couldn’t see it with his optics, but her EM field rippled with annoyance. Sweet sweet victory. He had to do _something_ to keep himself awake.

               “No.” If her field conveyed her mood, then her tone was steeped in it. “I was partnered up with you for this mission because Bumblebee trusts me to be able to keep you in line.”

               Oh was that so? She was always so sure of her convictions. Sideswipe slouched further down where he lay and shot Strongarm a smirk. “Yeah I can see you’re doing a real good job of that.”

               It wouldn’t be a proper mission if he didn’t give her a hard time with just about everything. As annoying as she could be Sideswipe went directly out of his way to provoke it more often than not. It was their identity, they were enemies; he liked it that way.

               More than he liked that her only response was to stick a servo out and shove his legs off of their tree. His pedes landed hard on the ground and he sat up straight to kick back at her.

               “What’s your problem?!” He knew the answer, she knew the answer, he wanted to hear it anyways.

               “ _You’re_ my problem Sideswipe!” She huffed. “Bumblebee chose you to be a part of this team, the least you could do is act like it.”

               She got frustrated so easily, it would have been cute if it wasn’t so exasperating. Sideswipe fought it, emphatically, because he knew he could. “ _I_ was never chosen to be a part of anything, _you_ dragged me across the bridge with you.” Really, he would have been just as well if he hadn’t been stranded on the Most Boring Planet In Existence. And that was _without_ present company included.

               Strongarm rolled her optics and seemed to read his mind. “It’s not like you were doing that much on Cybertron anyways.” Because she was serious about absolutely everything she was still crouched down in position, hidden from the clearing. Like a good little cadet. “You were only going to end up back at the station again.”

               Well now this wasn’t fun anymore. That was a low blow. It was true, but it was low, and no amount of reminders that she saw him as nothing more than a criminal would _ever_ make Sideswipe want to co-operate with her.

               “Do you know what your problem is?” She probably did, but he was going to tell her anyways, in a full frontal confrontation. “Your problem is that you somehow still believe that _anybody_ likes you. They don’t! You are such a pain for anyone to be around!”

               _That_ was a low blow. And it wasn’t true, not really, but the way that Strongarm pinched her lips together and turned away from him meant that she didn’t think so. It wasn’t their typical runaround. Strongarm’s optics were back glued on the site they had been staking out, and were going to remain so until either a Decepticon stumbled into their path or they got a call from Bee – or possibly until the end of time. That one had hurt, hadn’t it?

               But what could Sideswipe do about it _now_ , other than cross his arms and pretend that he had meant it. Apologize? That was unheard of. They had their roles, and for the most part Sideswipe _liked_ having Strongarm for an enemy.

               Or—he used to at least. Usually it didn’t make him want to cringe.

               Stakeouts were terrible.

 

 


	5. 0.50 -- Pencil; Jetfire + Jetstorm + Sentinel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You may notice that this one hardly fits with the prompt word at all; that is because I didn't use it at all.   
> Instead I wanted to write the twins being little brats.   
> I guess there's a warning for very briefly mentioned body horror in this one.

“What in the name of the AllSpark is _that_?” Sentinel decided almost immediately asking that he didn’t really care _what_ it was, it was creepy either way. They had hardly been in the boonies of the commonwealth for more than a solar cycle – for a mission that he really thought should have been delegated to someone less important – and already he’d seen more dirt and grime and _things_ than he’d ever wanted to in his lifecycle.

               There were even some _organic_ species on this rustwater planet, as if the rationed energon and sad slanted little shacks they called homes weren’t enough to write the entire rock off as ready for the slagheap. How did anybody live like this?!

               Jetstorm swept in front of him and snatched the little insect up from where it was sitting. Of course the two brats he’d been saddled with were originally from some dusty rock around the peripheral ring, if anything they were used to living in the sticks, and it showed as Jetstorm held the gross little bug up to him. Sentinel reeled back to get away from it.

               “Oh! Sentinel Prime sir, this is we call a pencil slug!” It was about half the size of Jetstorm’s palm and Sentinel recoiled again as it wriggled its long _slimy_ body.

               “Well I call it disgusting! Get that thing away from me!” _Way_ away. The thing was wriggling and writhing and _leaking_ something out of its expansive body. It was terrible.

               “Why? Is just slug.” As if on cue Jetfire popped up behind them to peer closely at the bug in his brother’s hold. The slug was currently _slithering_ its way from Jetstorm’s palm to the back of his hand. Creepy, just creepy.

               Sentinel’s optic twitched. He could almost _feel_ it crawling on him. “It’s _oozing_.”

               Jetfire laughed. “Yes, but is not burning type.”

               Burning—What?

               “What do you know of that _burns_?!” This time Sentinel’s optics went the size of energon cubes. That was horrendous, that was sickening; how did anyone actually _live_ out here? The slug on Jetstorm’s servo continued its journey obliviously and Sentinel caught every push of, eugh, _fluid_ that seeped out of the orifices all over its tiny mechanical body. It was revolting. He couldn’t believe they were touching it.

               What he missed however was the devious look that passed between the two fliers.

Jetfire was the first to pipe up happily, grinning so wide he should have broken his faceplating. “Do not to worry Sentinel Prime sir, the burning ones are to be living on our homeplanet.”

Well remind him to blacklist whichever rock of a planet those two were from then.

“Jetfire is right to say, sir.” Jetstorm agreed. His smile was just as big. “Those ones is oozing instead acids. Wherever they go, ooze will melting straight theough plating. You can be seeing mechs internals from outside!” Jetstorm wiggled the digits of his slug infested servo helpfully to further illustrate the graphic image. Sentinel slapped his servo away in horror and nearly shrieked when he realised he’d gotten the slime on himself as well.

“Don’t tell me about that! And get rid of that slagging thing. That’s an order!” They had to be ordered around to listen to anything. Sentinel wiped his servo down with a cleaning rag – one he’d probably burn afterwards – while Jetstorm pouted a ‘yes Sentinel Prime, sir’ and kneeled to put the revolting creature back on the ground.

Jetfire danced in front to help his brother look at the pest, or get in the way, or whatever, and mock-pouted. “Slugs are not even bad ones, bad ones get inside and—“

“I don’t want to hear it! Not another word out of either of you two, understood?” Inside?! Inside of _what_? Plating? Fuel tanks? Optics? Oh Primus, he didn’t want to know about anything that ate through a mech’s optics. That was… That was _disgusting_. How was anything that disgusting allowed to live in the universe? Sentinel shuddered through the force of his own extrapolation and shouted at the twins to stay quiet again just to dispel it.

A low whistle behind him was all the proof Sentinel needed to know that Jazz was on the scene now, “What have you two done to torment SP again this time?” as if his subordinates needed anymore encouragement.

As always the seekers took what they could get. “We were only telling of creeping crawlers that live back home.” Jetfire, again. “Are being much worse than here, big larva we have that burrow under plating and—“

No. He wasn’t doing this.

“I thought I told you to shut your intake, soldier!” Sentinel shouted, and through either programming or training both fliers snapped up straight into attention. “We’re not spending another nanoklik on this rusted scrapheap of a planet, now move out! March!”

They marched. The three of them straight out in front of him and back to the ship. Whatever ‘communications’ Ultra Magnus had wanted him to do here could just wait until they sent someone else from Cybertron, _nothing_ was worth was worth putrid little larva that wormed under your plating and did… Did _what_ exactly?

Despite everything Sentinel was about to find out. In front of him Jetstorm leaned over to whisper conspiratorially at Jazz, who was looking more disturbed by the nanoklik.

“The bugs, they are burrowing under plating and eating on circuits and wiring. But are sneaky, transform to replace the parts they eat and grow for more badness. Bots never notice until they are time too late. In the end? Half bot, half bug.”

               That wasn’t real. There was _no way_ that could be real. Sentinel turned to the side and purged his tanks anyways.


	6. 000 -- Aftermath; Fracture + Divebomb + Airazor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This isn't part of the 30 day challenge, I wrote it like a month ago but had nowhere to put it until now.   
> Fracture bein a daddy, enjoy.

“Master!”

Both Airazor and Divebomb were quick to disengage. They had been nervous before the mission with the unfamiliar planet and the history behind it and hardly waited until he’d transformed again to crowd around him. Things had gone closer to a ‘worst case scenario’ kind of direction.

“Are you all right Master?”

“They fought dirty!”

“Boys, Boys, I’m fine!” Fracture dropped a knee to check over his minicons after a quick scan to ensure the area was clear. “It’ll take more than a couple of junkyard bots and that idiot Drift to knock my struts outta line.” Not to say he wouldn’t thank them properly for costing him his ship _and_ his groundbridge the next time they met. And they would. A bounty was useless if you couldn’t get off the planet with him, and by the looks of it they—“Divebomb, you’re bleeding.”

“Wha?” Divebomb looked down at the underside of the arm his boss held up for him and grunted. “I don’t remember that.”

“It was those little samurais!” Airazor scuttled forward to get a closer look sighing dramatically. “Jetstorm and Slipstream! They’re the ones who did it! And they stole our ship!”

The cut was clean and relatively shallow, Fracture noted. Nothing worse than his minicons had ever done fighting amongst each other, but this planet was teeming with organic life and rust and it was anyone’s guess as to what could fester in exposed protoform.

“He’s fine Airazor; it’s just a scratch.” Fracture reassured the more excitable of his minicons before giving his thumb a long lick and cleaning out the wound with it. Oral solvent didn’t make for the best of disinfectants, but it was at least acidic enough to stop any water-based life from infecting.

Airazor switched between peering out at the forest around them to watching the procedure closely. “Does it hurt?” As always he was restless, and placed a servo on Divebomb’s shoulder only to have it shrugged off again seconds later.

“Nah, not really.” Divebomb smirked. “I hardly felt it.”

“Well good, because you were nearly crying the _last_ time you got hurt.”

With a long arm Divebomb pushed Airazor stumbling back a few skittering steps. “I was not! _You’re_ the one who’s always crying and complaining.”

Fracture pulled his injured arm back into place before the two could start a proper scuffle. “Save it for later you two. We’ve gotta keep moving.” Both little bots straightened up quickly with their orders, allowing Fracture to finish his rough patchjob. He gave Divebomb’s arm a pat and stood up again, they weren’t being pursued but they would need something of a base for as long as they were going to be grounded. “Let’s go.”

“Uh, Boss?” Airazor again, glancing about and looking absolutely apprehensive. “We don’t have to stay in the woods do we?” Divebomb’s optics were equally wide as he noticed the blotted out sky, shuffle of dry leaves, and long cast shadows around them for the first time since they’d stopped.

Admittedly, Earth’s forests were a creepy atmosphere, with too many places to hide and too low a visibility to properly see what was around. There was nothing tactical about them.

“No.” Fracture cleared his throat and it came out as a laugh. “We’ll find the main road and go from there. Come on, get on.”

There was _something_ they could use on this bot-forsaken planet, all they had to do was find it.


	7. 0.60 -- Squint; Ironhide/Wasp

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I just wanted robots with glasses, this is all this is, it's just robots with glasses. Here you go Alia.

“Give. Them. Back.”

               When he got angry – but not really angry – every word Wasp said was punctuated, each a short sentence with a staccato pause for the next. Glaring at Ironhide as he said them wasn’t enough either, he had to poke him in the chestplate with each pause too.

               Ironhide only chuckled, and held his arm up a little higher. “Give what back?” He feigned ignorance, poorly. “What’d I take Wasp?”

               He didn’t have to take this. Wasp lunged at Ironhide’s arm again and fell just short of grabbing anything higher than his elbow.

               “I’m,” he jumped again, and missed again. “Going to kill you.”

               This time it was an all out snort as Wasp latched onto his arm and tried to drag it downwards instead. “Can you even see me?”

               “Of course I can!” Wasp squinted. “You’re the big ugly lump of orange!” He pulled down on Ironhide’s arm hard and moved nowhere. Stupid scrapheap. With every name Wasp could think of he cursed Ironhide out, Ironhide lifted his own arm and pulled the minibot clean into the air.

               “You know, that’s not the nicest, Wasp.” Even when blurred Ironhide’s grin was infuriatingly smug. “Now you haven’t even told me what you lost.”

               Oh, for the love of—Wasp shot Ironhide his best glare before letting go and dropping himself back down to the ground. Anything was better than starting into that stupid out-of-focus mug.

               “I didn’t lose anything you idiot! You took them from me!” And for that he was going to kill him. Anything less just wouldn’t be fair. “Give me back my glasses!”

               He tried just straight climbing up Ironhide next, but had little luck.

               “C’mon Wasp, you know the drill. Whatcha gonna do for me?”

               “Not a damn thing!”

There was no mercy when it came to keepaway.

               “Hows about you tell me I’m the biggest, strongest mech you ever met.”

               “Eat slag!”

Ironhide could very easily have done this forever, but Wasp was already frustrated at his lack of progress and lack of vision. He stopped punching Ironhide’s arm and shoulder for a moment to glare and tap his pede on the ground instead. It didn’t do much in the way of fixing anything, but he needed the klik to fume.

               “I hate you.”

               Ironhide only laughed again. “I’m not gonna give them back until you say it.” He was dead sure of that fact, and Wasp only hated him the more for it.

               At this point in the year Ironhide was swiping Wasp’s glasses off his face at a rate of almost once per week, and every time with some stupid little ransom he wanted before he’d give them back. It was crazy, it was unsustainable, Wasp wasn’t going to let him win again.

               If he couldn’t get up to Ironhide’s servo, he’d have to bring his servo down to him instead. Fair enough. Wasp had a solid plan this time as he launched back into the fray; he reached up, faked another grab, and elbowed Ironhide hard in the side.

               Harder than he’d thought – Ironhide went down fast, doubled over with a shout that put a wicked grin on Wasp’s face for a change.

               “Wh… What was that for?” Ironhide wheezed it out, and Wasp snatched his glasses back before he could try anything sneaky. Which a lot was more common of him than you’d think.

               “What do you think that was for, bolt-brain?” With his eyesight returned proper, Ironhide’s features filtered in clearly again and he could see that the idiot was still smiling. Only Ironhide, seriously.

               “You hit hard, you know.” Ironhide stretched back into a stand and looped an arm – the one he’d been hanging off of earlier – around him. For fear of having them stolen again Wasp recoiled from it, and pushed his glasses further up his face. He bumped against Ironhide’s chest instead. “Has anyone ever told you that ya fight good for your size?”

               “Yeah.” Wasp looked up over his rims at him. “You. All the time.”

               “Good!” The orange mech laughed, and clapped him on the shoulderpad, and Wasp couldn’t believe he’d ever willingly kissed such a dork before. “Then where’s my compliment? You gonna tell me I’m pretty yet?”

               Wasp punched him instead.


	8. 0.70 -- Misplaced; Blitzwing/Bumblebee

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I've never written this pair before, but I really like them together. :3

               Well. Suffice to say Bumblebee had never seen what acid rain could do to a mech before. He’d been taught once, or he should have been, in the classroom portion of boot camp that was all foreign territories and how to survive and conduct yourself on them. Bee had never listened to any of those though, any more than five kliks and they threatened to offline a bot through boredom alone. As of now the only rain he’d ever been introduced to was the soft and cool water that fell on Earth.

               Which apparently, given the way the battle field had cleared in nanokliks, was _nothing_ like acid rain was. Not that Bumblebee knew much about real battlefields either, kicking Con skidplate back on earth was a whole world of different compared to full scale war. He still kicked just as much skidplate as always, of course, but there were a lot more mechs too… and a _lot_ more to keep track of at once. Somewhere between the alert sirens and realizing what they actually meant Bumblebee had lost track of his team. He’d even gotten separated from Bulkhead, somehow, and was currently scrambling around a deserted city trying to find them. _Slag_ the clouds had rolled in fast. And dark, he could hardly see his servo a foot away from his faceplates!

               The first drops hit in front of him, and the only reason Bumblebee knew they did so was because of the hiss they let out as they landed. That was definitely not a good sound.

               The next drop hit square on Bumblebee’s shoulderpad, and it _burned_. He must have jumped another foot in the air.

“Oh slag, that stings!” It really _was_ acid, wasn’t it? “Why did we decide to fight on _this_ planet?!”

               With no cover and no clue where he was going, Bumblebee decided just to run for it. This, he would later discover was an often fatal mistake that was definitely covered in basic training.

               Bumblebee didn’t have time to make that mistake though before he was grabbed by something – something big – and hauled clean off of his pedes and backwards.

               Any struggling, of which there was a lot of, was quelled by large servos pinning his arms to his sides.

               “If you do not stop struggling you are going to kill yourself.”

               He couldn’t see anything but a pair of red optics, but the voice… the voice was unmistakable. “Blitzbrain?! What are you going here? Let go of me!”

               As if on cue the two irregular optics in the dark exchanged themselves for an equally red visor and Blitzwing growled. “Stop with the squirming or I will toss you back into the rain!”

               Oh. Belatedly Bumblebee realized that they weren’t out in the open anymore, but pulled under some sort of cover instead. From here he could only hear the hiss of the rain, the burning that remained was nothing but the effects of the droplets that had already hit him, not new ones. Not that it made them hurt any less though.

               “How did you find me?” Bumblebee felt his way around and came to the conclusion that he was sitting between Blitzwing’s legs. Okay.

               “You’re not exactly hard to identify with your shouting.” Blitzwing was apparently back to ice blue and Bumblebee felt his was up the triplechanger’s cockpit to only mild grumbling. “What are you doing?”

               “I can’t see anything!” Bumblebee glared up at him and got glared coolly back at. “How am I supposed to know where you are?”

               Blitzwing vented a sigh, a short noise that would have been nothing but derisive if Bumblebee hadn’t consciously decided not to take it that way. “I’m everywhere, you are tiny.”

               “Pocket sized.” That was the conventional retort. “For your convenience.” Blitzwing caught Bee’s servo before it travelled too far up his chest and returned it to his side nonetheless. What a stick in the mud. Truth be told and weird as it was, Bumblebee was kind of happy to have run into Blitzwing. Out of all the Con’s he could have bumped into at least. Thing had changed with the start of the war and things had changed fast. Optimus did his best to keep the old team together, but… well there was no telling anymore what would happen from one cycle to the next. It was hard to keep an easy outlook with that going around.

               “Hey you know what I miss?” Bee poked the triplechanger on his side and got a short tap to one of his horns for it. “Earth’s rain. Earth’s rain never tried to strip a bot’s plating clean off them. It was awesome!” Almost as much so as seeing a familiar faceplate (or faceplates he guessed). With the acid rain still hissing in a steady stream outside, Bee made himself comfortable against Blitzwing’s frame; they were going to be here for a while, might as well make it pleasant. “Do you miss Earth, Blitzbrain?”

               Blitzwing filtered through every single one of his faces before he answered. “… It had a certain charm.” The large servo he dropped on Bumblebee’s back was pretty nice too, if Bee took the time to admit it.

               “Yeah. Hey why did you grab me anyways? I mean since you’re a Con and everything.” Maybe it was a stupid thing to ask, but he wanted to know anyways. Surprisingly it was the rough voice of Blitzwing’s red face that answered him, the feisty one. Usually at least, right now he was kind of quiet.

               “No one needs to die that way.”

               He could have sworn the ‘I’ll crush you afterwards, puny insect.’ was added as an afterthought.

  



	9. 0.80 -- Joy; Blurr/Shockwave (+Baby)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is a direct sequel to 'Baby'. You can read it alone if you want, but it will probably make more sense if you read that ficlet first.

It was a bad idea. He knew it from the moment he had decided upon it. It was a bad idea, by all means it was the _wrong_ idea, but it was the only one Blurr could think of that offered any solace in it. He had other options, there were always other options – but none that would help.

               So that night he gathered up his sleeping sparkling – still exerted from her earlier tantrums that day – and snuck into the stockades.

                It wasn’t hard to do. Blurr was still in the Elite Guard even if only through title and faction symbol, and the stockades were almost entirely automated through minicon drones. By anyone else it would have been more difficult, but Autobot Command had a way of forgetting that which had been deemed unimportant to them. Blurr was nothing more than a last link to the mistakes of the past. They did what they could to forget him; progress could not be made without moving forward.

               The stockades were always dark and often quiet for all the mechs that lay within them. The deeper you went the more surreal it became, and Blurr stole through the long corridors with minicons alerted to allow his passage quickly and quietly. He’d been here before. The first time, when he had made his decision on Velocity. Command had given him the choice to raise the newspark or let her go to orphanage, Blurr had wanted to speak to Shockwave first; he had wanted to see him with his own optics. No Decepticon had ever looked as huge, as all engulfing, as Shockwave had to Blurr that day. This was the mech who had very well killed him, the one he now shared an unborn sparkling with, no amount of training, experience, or determination could have prepared Blurr for him. Shockwave talked about the newspark like it was something he cared about, he had talked about Blurr like he was someone he knew. Blurr had hated him, but he could never have left Velocity behind.

               This time when he approached the cell, so far down the stockades that daylight seemed like a metaphor, Shockwave was already staring at him. His red optic was a motionless reminder of the coding that ran through their creation. He’d been waiting for them and Blurr didn’t know what to say, he didn’t know how much Shockwave could feel.

               He wouldn’t allow his voice to waver no matter how much it tried to. “I had to come. And I’m not here for you so don’t you make that mistake, I’m here for her.” The bundle in his arms shifted again as he spoke and Blurr pet the small antenna on Velocity’s helm to rouse her from recharge. “She misses you.”

               There was nothing else he could have done for her.

               “Mama?”

               “Hello, little one.”

               Velocity lifted her sleepy helm and her optic lit up like it hadn’t in weeks. She stared up at her carrier like she had woken up from a dream and squirmed and wiggled in her sire’s arms trying to free herself. No sooner had she been placed on the ground was Velocity scampering up to the barrier wall that separated her from her creator.

               “Mama!”

               Joy. It was pure joy from her, real and unbridled at the sparkling bounced on her pedes and giggled up at her carrier. Shockwave knelt down in the small space his cell provided to greet his creation by name, and Velocity chirped and whirred.

               They were happy. Happy just to see each other, even if only for the moment. Blurr had assumed Shockwave to be sparkless, it had been the easiest course to take, the simplest solution. His own spark had known different, and as Shockwave waved his servo for Velocity to chase and pounce after he knew it had to be true.

They looked so similar together. Blurr had known it but never believed it; there was no disputing fact for what it was now. Shockwave had done everything he could to break Blurr; he’d lied to him, used him, crushed him in the tunnels and tossed him aside like scrap metal, but nothing had hurt quite like this. They belonged together. Velocity loved Shockwave, she was happy with him. Together they were their own family, free from the war and Cybertron, free from factions and the stockades that held them apart. Blurr saw no part for himself in that. He didn’t know which loss hurt more.

“I wondered when you would bring her to see me.” Shockwave kept his optic on his creation as he spoke to him, watching as the little one chased after his servo. For him it was easy.

Blurr’s cheeks stung with cold coolant down his face. “I was never going to.”

It was the truth. He felt like a criminal for it. 


	10. 0.90 -- Party; Rodimus/Blurr

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This one takes place in the same universe as Hambone's Textbook Felony. So it's a highschool au. It's not canon or anything, I've done a couple other non-canon ficlets in her universe; none of them have any bearing on what happens over there, but unless you're at least somewhat familiar with that fic you might be confused. 
> 
> Which is a great time to say! Textbook Felony is a fantastic fanfic and if you're into ShockBlurr, petplay, and scandalous student/teacher relations then you should give it a go!

“I don’t believe it.” Rodimus grinned as he caught the babbling bot who was threatening to stumble over his own pedes and herded him out of the crowd and over to the wall. “Blurr has finally had one too many, I didn’t think it was possible.”

               Usually it wasn’t. Blurr was never a common sight at parties, he never had been, but he _had_ won more than his fair share of drinking contests at the ones that he was dragged to. It was a bit of a legend that only Blurr seemed to not know about.

The blue bot laughed into Rodimus’ shoulder and looked up at him like he was keeping a secret. He looked so cute that way. “No! No, no, no, I didn’t have too many, I only had a few! I only had the normal amount, but you know this time Sentinel finally went through Lockdown to get the good stuff, it’s good, it’s really good, he’s such a cheapskate.”

Three hours into what was shaping up to be one of the most chaotic parties of the year and Rodimus wasn’t sober enough to truly recognize the brightened optics and shallow vents of an overcharged bot for what they were, and he wasn’t sober enough to make out more than maybe 30% of what Blurr was saying either. But what he could make out with unwavering certainty was that the acidic smell wafting off of Blurr’s frame was almost certainly the nitro-grade Sentinel had gotten off Lockdown. Or some guy Lockdown knew at least, he didn’t know the specifics. He also hadn’t even gotten to _see_ it; nitro was illegal practically everywhere but Velocitron, and with good reason if it was enough to frag even Blurr up. Not that Rodimus was thinking about it too hard with Blurr’s servos roaming his frame like they were looking for something.

               “I was looking for you!” Blurr stuck both his servos up Rodimus’ shirt and neither of them had the presence of mind to check if anyone was watching them between the mess of mechs and the thick beats of whatever was blaring through Sentinel’s caretakers’ loudspeakers. “I couldn’t find you, but I was looking for you, Rodimus I have something I have to tell you. At least—at least some of it, I’m going to tell you.”

               He couldn’t hear what Blurr was saying, but he liked the way he was moving. Rodimus swayed them both out of time with the music and thumbed along the waistband of Blurr’s pants. Every word he said sounded too low, too sluggish, as if they weren’t even coming from his vocaliser. He didn’t know how Blurr heard them at all. “Yeah? Well you found me!” It was dumb, he knew it was dumb, he laughed anyways. Everything about nights like these were dim and heavy and nothing but a whirl of action until you found yourself pulled out of the crowd. Then time stopped. Rodimus didn’t mind spending the rest of his life like this.

               He must have said something though because Blurr’s lips were on his, and they were sudden and soft and sloppy. It took Rodimus a nanoklik to even register that they happened; they were already kissing. He’d been waiting forever for the right moment to kiss Blurr.

               It was amazing.

               No really, it was amazing. Past the intoxicating atmosphere of lout music and hot frames and whoever was hollering in the kitchen, and past the intensity and excitement that isolated high school from every other frame of life. Everything felt perfect. Blurr sucked on Rodimus’ lips like he’d been practicing it at home, and slid his leg between Rodimus’ thighs in a single fluid motion like it was the typical course of action. Like he knew what he was doing.

               Rodimus nearly choked on the tongue in his mouth. They needed to find somewhere to go. Now.

               “Blurr, Blurr! Hey!” It wasn’t easy to break away from Blurr’s lips, and his glossa, and his servos, nor was it easy to pretend he wasn’t too overcharged to be running on anything other than emotions and inhibition, but somehow he managed it only to get caught in big optics instead. “C’mon, let’s go upstairs or something.” Rodimus grinned again but he couldn’t feel it. His servos were on Blurr but he didn’t know where. He felt like he had tunnel vision.

               But Blurr was beautiful, flushed and gorgeous, and shaking his helm as he leaned further into Rodimus and knocked them both back against the wall. He was babbling again, but it was more of a mumble.

               “You’re so nice, Rodimus you’re always so nice to me. I don’t want to lie anymore, and I don’t want to lie to you, but I have to, I don’t have a choice. But I wish I could tell you, you’re my best friend and I hate having to hide all the time, Rodimus can’t I just tell you?”

               Between the volume of the atmosphere around them and the high-grade in Blurr’s systems his words were nearly unintelligible – just a rush of one word slurring into the next. Rodimus let him speak as much as he wanted and missed all of it. 


	11. 1.00 -- Cough; Grimlock/Bumblebee

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I'm not going to pretend this is any good.

“Bumblebee I’m gonna—“

“I got it, Grim.” Bumblebee whipped a rag – it looked like an old tarp – off of one of Denny Clay’s more questionable piles of collectibles and held it out for Grimlock to take. Grimlock decided that the best action for him to take was to stick his faceplates right into the rag and sneeze into Bumblebee’s servos instead.

Which really was something Bee should have seen coming.

“Sorry.” Grimlock had the good grace to look truly apologetic from under the mass of blankets and other covers he’d buried himself in. And he’d managed to avoid transforming mid-sneeze this time, you had to appreciate that.

“It’s alright Grimlock.” Bumblebee wiped off his servos and handed the rag to Grimlock who scrunched it up in one big set of claws. “The sooner you get over this bug the sooner you can get back out into the field again.” Grimlock loved being part of the fray, whether it was for the sake of fighting or because it made him feel like part of the team was irrelevant, either way they needed him. It had been his overzealous effort that had gotten him sick in the first place; a chilly encounter with a couple of cons who had locked Grimlock in a large storage freezer for most of the night. He was going to be just fine of course, but until his core thawed out completely it was going to be a lot of leaking coolant and aching joints. According to Russell it was similar to a human cold, but even Bumblebee had a hard time believing that so much excess fluid could come from a little human.

He felt bad for Grimlock, he did, but really as a leader there was much else he could do for him. “Try to get some rest.” He tapped a reassuring servo against the dinobot’s leg as he turned to head back to the command center. Grimlock watched him go for a couple seconds before asking:

“Bumblebee?”

“Hm?”

“Can you stay with me for a while?” Even with his optics dim and his EM field small and scrambled Grimlock’s hopeful smile was impossible to ignore. Bumblebee had work to do: he had maintenance to attend to, cons to locate, and teenagers to look after. He came back and sat down beside Grimlock anyways, passing a servo over black and green plating. He was considerably warmer than he had been when they had brought him in, that was a relief. The dinobot grinned even wider showing off his crooked dentae and sneezed more coolant into his already oversoaked rag.

“Bee?”

Bumblebee was currently contemplating using his downtime with Grimlock to go over a few new catchphrase ideas:

 “Yeah?” What about something with ‘Rock and Rumble’?

“Could you rub my belly?”

Of course he could. And he did without hesitation as Grimlock coughed and sneezed again and made a mess of the nest of blankets he’d made for himself. Any illness was miserable, and Bumblebee might have done all that he could as a leader, but there was a fair few more things he could do to help as a friend.

“Hey Grim, how do you feel about ‘Rev up and roll out’? I kind of like that one, it’s got alliteration, that’s catchy right?”

Bumblebee was almost positive Grimlock’s groan of malcontent was due to his sickness. It had to be, right?


	12. 000 -- Shoes; Ironhide/Wasp

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is also not part of the 30 day challenge. This is a drabble prompt Hamfootsia gave me over on tumblr. I decided to make it a highschool au because I've got the power. And because it just worked.

“Hey Wasp!” Ironhide caught up to his friend and fell in pace beside him; pace being a little too fast to be considered a casual one. “Where’d you get those?”

               “Changerooms.” The objects in question were a pair of really nice kicks. The kind that were sponsored by famous athletes in wordless desaturated commercials with weird angled shots and over-tensioned music, the kind that parents didn’t even bother asking how much they cost before deciding you couldn’t get them. There was only one kid in school that Ironhide knew of who’d been bragging for _weeks_ about how he was getting them for managing to work his way onto the honour role last semester, which explained why Wasp was making a beeline for the stairwell.

               Once they were through the doors and up half a flight the mini stopped short and grabbed Ironhide’s arm. “You’d better not tell anyone you saw me!” He demanded. Then, as an afterthought added; “What are you doing out of class anyways?”

               “Substitute.” The universal answer for ‘I only stuck around as long as the attendance’. Ironhide shrugged happily and Wasp only stared at him long enough to roll his optics before scaling the stairs again.

               “So? What are you gonna do with ‘em?” Ironhide took the steps two at a time to catch up again.

               “I’m going to chuck them on the roof where they’ll be worn to scrap before _he_ ever finds them.” Wasp only stopped long enough to tie the laces together and swing the shoes over his shoulder before he kept running. “He doesn’t deserve them anyways, there’s no way Cyclonus gave him an A. Cyclonus doesn’t give anyone an A!” Mr. Cyclonus had not given Wasp an A.

               Wasp’s rivalry with Bumblebee had apparently gone on longer than Ironhide cared to ask, but he did have another question. “How you gonna do it though? I wasn’t thinking anyone could get on the roof.”

               The mini scoffed as he cleared the last few steps to the top floor. “No _everyone else_ can’t get on the roof.” Instead of heading through the doors and into the corridors of the top floor Wasp turned and went up the last half flight that stopped at a solid little door. Ironhide has always known the door was there, he saw it every time he came from 3 rd period down to the cafeteria for lunch, but he had never once actually _considered_ what lay behind it. It had never been important.

               Until now that was.

               Wasp tossed the sneakers to Ironhide and slammed his backpack on the ground. A few seconds of rummaging pulled a single key from its confines.

               “Uh, Wasp?”

               “It pays to know the right teachers.”

               He couldn’t have been anymore smug about it if he’d tried. Still the next few minutes were something magical as Wasp pulled Ironhide through two rooms he’d never seen and up a ladder to the roof explaining in clipped (but no less smug) sentences that he’d been allowed to store extra projects up here, and that Ironhide wasn’t allowed to mention _that_ to anyone either. They’d never think to look otherwise.

               “You really thought this one through, huh?” Ironhide whistled impressed after Wasp hid the black and yellow sneakers in the far corner of the roof. You could still see them, but only if you knew what you were looking for.

               “Almost…” Wasp looked from the shoes to the hatch they’d pulled themselves onto the roof from and back again, he was venting harder than normal and Ironhide could feel the heat peeling off his frame as adrenaline got the better of him. But Wasp had always been a quick thinker. “Come on, we’re going to the art rooms, if anyone asks we snuck out of class to make out in the darkroom or something. That’s our alibi.”

               They were halfway down the ladder again before Ironhide spoke up again as he pulled Wasp the rest of the way to the floor. “Don’tcha think it’ll be more believable if we let someone catch us though?” He _was_ keeping Wasp’s secrets after all.

               “Yeah, fine, whatever—just hurry!”


	13. 1.10 -- Hot/Cold; Starscream/Skyfire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is Shattered Glass Skystar, and it's dark and kind of manipulative and also nsfw a little bit.   
> Me and ribbonelle talk about these two in shattered glass a lot, and I was really excited to write this as a result

In the dark Skyfire was everywhere. His black plating melted into the shadow and curled around his frame; but this is how Starscream had wanted it. It’s what he had asked for. He followed the cues of Skyfire’s red optics like he was hypnotized and didn’t let himself look away.

              “There we are Starscream.” When Skyfire smiled Starscream felt it more than he did see it. He climbed from the berth into the shuttle’s lap and sank into his waiting arms. “I knew you’d come around.”

              Skyfire’s voice was a low rumble in Starscream’s audio, like the thunder that echoed after the storm had passed. It had been a storm today. But Skyfire was trustworthy, he was the most trustworthy mech Starscream knew. The thought panged antagonizingly within his spark, but it did not diminish the truth of it. Following red optics as if he was strung to them Starscream pulled himself towards them and pushed his lips against Skyfire’s. He let the heat of it consume him, he let large servos comb between his wings. Kissing Skyfire was like suffocating, like his vents had stalled. After the desecration of Crystal City Starscream was already dead.

              “Don’t think about him.” Skyfire could read his mind through the trembling of his wings. He raked his fingers down them and made Starscream arch against him. It stung. Starscream clenched his own servos against the broad slats of Skyfire’s shoulders and waited for the rest. “You can’t let yourself worry about what happened today.”

              “What choice do I have?” Despite himself Starscream tensed in the embrace. He didn’t want to argue, he just wanted to feel safe. Skyfire was safety, he kissed him again and tried to explain as he had already. “He wants  _me,_ Skyfire.” The knowledge froze his lines; he licked his lips. “Who knows what he’ll do next?”

              Starscream had never been a coward, he had held firm in his denial, and been forced to watch as his home was annihilated before him. Skyfire had been the one to find him; he was the thunder after the storm.

              “He wants you?” Skyfire’s servos crawled across his frame, down his thighs – his voice tinged in novelty. “Star-love, what would he want with you?”

              The question was pointed, his lover’s red optics were dark and assured. Starscream had no answer. “I… I don’t know.” But it was true. He’d seen the look, the anger, Optronix was never denied what he demanded and he never went without.

              Skyfire chuckled small and low. It was reassuring, it turned him hot with shame. “You can be so paranoid, can’t you Star? You need to stop thinking about it.” This time when his servo moved back up between his legs Starscream was ready for it. He slid his panels back with nothing but a quiet click. Familiar, and heavy enough in implication.

              “Then help me.” Starscream could be direct, he could be resolute; he gripped against Skyfire’s plating like it was a lifeline and felt cold under his gaze. Skyfire had the power to make him feel like nothing, to make his spark hitch and knot like an engine under failure. It was wrong to want it as much as he did; he wanted to forget, he wanted to suffocate.

              He wanted the safety of being no one to anyone else.

              Skyfire parted the lips of his valve with two thick digits and Starscream caught his optics, he curled them up into wet warmth and Starscream refused to look away. He had wanted this, he’d asked for it – he squeezed his legs against Skyfire’s dark servo and pulled a moan from his own vocaliser. In the wake of fear, failure, frustration, Skyfire was like a drug. He was always there for him. Starscream kissed him feverently, he mouthed along his chin and neck cabling, panted into his plating, and didn’t trust himself to say another word.

              “It’s alright little Star,” Skyfire was everywhere, and pulled pleasure out of Starscream soft and slow. “I’m here for you.” He was safety, sweet and warm; he was a poison the scientist willingly swallowed. In Cybertron proper Autobots were looting streets, drunk on weapons and war, nothing would be the same now. There were worse things than the knot in his sparkchamber. There were worse things than the digits pulsing against his inner nodes.

              At least Skyfire loved him. And for that he could forget.


	14. 1.20 -- Sin; Shockwave>>Blurr (onesided)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alright so this is a ficlet in which Shockwave is a total unapologetic creep and Blurr is a sparkling. Nothing graphic at all happens, it's mostly his internal thoughts but Shockwave is creepin' on a kid and I believe I should warn about that.  
> I wanted to write this because I think it’s interesting to Shockwave's utter distaste for the Autobots in general and how that conflicts with thoughts on Blurr, as well as showing just how far the obsession goes that it would persist even if he had met Blurr under different circumstances. It’s not so much any one part of Blurr that he’s obsessed with, it’s Blurr as a concept. This isn’t meant to be a romantic or cute or anything, it’s meant to be creepy. (Although i should hope that comes across on its own.)

For creatures so assured of their own lack of deception the Autobots held a lot of secrets behind their ranks. It was a fact that neither Shockwave nor Megatron had ever been unaware of, and had made early infiltration all the more important. Secrets both old and new took their time to dredge to the surface; the Autobots required a chief of intel they could trust beyond all doubt. One who had proven himself repeatedly to their backwards excuse for a cause, and one who had gained access to all the secrets kept within the oh so hallowed halls of the ministry of science.

               The reward for such a role was meant to be the job itself, the esteem, the privilege; but Autobot honour meant little more than nothing to Shockwave. He had found himself a prize with the potential to be far more self-serving.

               “Longarm! Longarm Prime, sir! Hi!” The little sparkling had taken an early inclination to his persona. Shockwave saw it as nothing more than additional proof that the tiny mech would one day be his. And he was tiny; nothing but a stick of a bitlet with wide blur optics and an energy he retained no control over. He was one of many experimental frames. Sparklings crafted to push the boundaries of the Autobot soldier and owned in full by the government that paid for them. Autobots ensured loyalty through deception, and in that way Shockwave could concede they were in similarity.

               “Hello there Blurr, have you finished your tests this morning?” Longarm stopped and allowed the little sparkling to catch up to him. He was a fast little bot to say the least, designed to for agility and acceleration both through his unique frame design and revolutionary speed matrix technology. It wasn’t a perfect procedure: at the sparkling stage there were still too many bugs to patch and Blurr tripped over himself before crashing into Longarm’s leg in a bundle of spindly limbs and shiny blue plating. The need for speed disallowed for much in the way of protective armour, leaving Blurr fragile and soft.

               He was such a happy little sparkling, “Oh, yes of course I did Longarm Prime sir, they won’t let me out until I’ve gotten all my checkups and tests done, remember? Remember? I told you that!” He had no idea what was intended of him. Blurr rubbed his tiny faceplates against the soft malleable tread of Longarm’s leg and the Prime soothed a servo down the back of his pointed helm. The touch of blue plating alighted in him. He was so delicate, so beautiful, Shockwave had never seen a frame such as Blurr’s before. The sleek lines and smart design bots were built with presently simply hadn’t existed so many vorns ago. Now he had the opportunity to observe this one grow before his very optic; the sparkling was already so fond of him.  

               “Is that so?” Longarm chuckled. He had a reputation for being good with the experimental sparklings when he was on the premises with them. In a fluid motion he drew Blurr up into his arms, the sparkling wiggled happily. “I seem to recall you having more than a few jailbreaks under your record, don’t you?”

               Blurr laughed, high and shaky, and it resonated darkly within Shockwave’s spark. “Those times don’t count! They don’t, they don’t and do you know why? I’ll tell you why it’s because the first time I was hungry and I knew I could get my energon and get back before it was even-even time for testing, I knew I could, and I know where the energon is, and—“ Blurr babbled happily in his rambling and repetitive way about the science center, and scary generators, and the tests he did or did not like as Longarm walked them both through the courtyard and back towards the ministry’s nursery ward. The sparkling had a pension for investigation, and often wandered away from his given boundaries for it. That did not however mean he was any less under observation; it would do well to return him.

               “Oh! But I wanted to see you!” Blurr cut himself off mid-tirade to make the observation with a quick pat to the Prime’s arm. His servos were tiny and nimble against grey plating. “That’s why. I saw you from upstairs on the third floor and I wanted to come and see you – are you here to see Mainframe again?”

               Observant too, even for his young age. Blurr displayed a set of impressive talents wrapped up in a pretty package. Potential skills if he was handled in the correct method, dangerously clever if he wasn’t. Luckily for the both of them Shockwave knew exactly how to train a tiny thing like Blurr. There was an opportunity to be had, and since recognizing at such Shockwave had spared no expense calculating the most viable methods in binding Blurr to him. When the time came to finally shed his disguise and complete his mission, whenever that was, Blurr would be by his side. He was doubtless in it.

               Longarm however could only afford to laugh, even as the sparkling squirmed restlessly in his servos. Such a bright thing. “I am here on behalf of Cybertron Intelligence, yes.” Longarm’s smile reached past his false optics and Blurr beamed back at him. “That’s a good memory, Blurr. You might just make an invaluable agent yourself one day.”

               That was all the little speedster needed to hear. Blurr had always adored Longarm, for one reason or another, and was stumbling over his own accelerated speech trying to ascertain if Longarm had truly meant it. The life of a spy was almost enchanting to a child.

               “Of course I do Blurr,” It was not a waiting game so much as a course of working within the narrow parameters of his cover; a challenge. “You know you can always trust me.”

               The technology the Autobots held had always been their greatest of weapons and darkest of secrets; it was the driving force behind their control over Cybertron and the Decepticons’ greatest enemy. Blurr had been created through this technology; he had been fated since his manufacture for a life in the Elite Guard, a loyal soldier for the Autobots. What a measure in deception it would be when they discovered their own living weapon had been repurposed for the Decepticon cause.

There wasn’t a bot in Command who couldn’t put their trust in Longarm Prime, after all. It made his job easy and his convictions absolute. The sparkling was already his.


	15. 1.30 -- Care; Optimus/Sentinel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This one I wrote for a humanformers artschool au that Rinpin made about a year ago. But it works as a solo piece. It was fun to write, Sentinel is fun to write

When Sentinel sauntered into the kitchen it was a bright and eager eight o’ clock in the morning. Which by all accounts was too early for either of them to be up most of the time; unsurprisingly the coffee machine went on.

               “Optimus, you look like hell.” Sentinel leaned back against the counter with his hair combed and his teeth brushed, and Optimus huddled further into the same rumpled blanket he’d been wrapped in since the early hours of the morning.

               “I was up all night.” Again. He could have sworn he was more dead than alive at this point and couldn’t decide between staring blearily up at Sentinel or back at the screen of his laptop.

               Sentinel scoffed; the coffee machine crackled as hot water streamed through its cheap filter. “Yeah, I can see that.” It was easy to be patronizing when your success hinged on pre-existing connections and a bare minimal amount of effort. “You really oughta take better care of yourself.”

               Optimus couldn’t have rolled his eyes any harder if his head had tumbled clean off his shoulders in the motion. “I don’t have _time_ to sleep, I have to rewrite this entire paper for tomorrow!” Today. It was already the next day, and the 4:00 due date was rolling in fast.

               “Rewrite it?”

               Both students took a moment to stare at the coffee machine and will it to work faster.

               “Yeah. I misinterpreted the original subject.” He wasn’t going to explain it any further than that; everything had to be rewritten under a different premise now – right down to the captions. Just the thought was almost enough to drag Optimus’ head back down to rest on the table for the umpteenth time that night. Almost. But Sentinel was still staring at him like he’d spontaneously sprouted a pair of wings.

               “So what’s stopping you from just handing it in anyways?”

               A sense of self-respect, primarily. This time gravity won out and Optimus propped his chin on the table while he jabbed at a couple poorly worded sentences in his paper. He sighed. “My professors have been studying art history for almost as long as I’ve been alive, do you really think they’re not going to notice I’m wrong?”

               Finally the reanimating scent of dark roast permeated the air as the machine came to life proper. Sentinel waved Optimus’ words away like they meant nothing.

“So you just change it to sound like you’re exploring some revolutionary interpretation or whatever. Easy.”

               No, it was not that easy. “Maybe you could get away with that Sentinel, but I can’t.”

               “Have you ever tried?”

               He hadn’t don’t that either. Grumbling, Optimus pushed his caffeine-stained mug in the direction of his smug roommate. “Coffee.”

               For once the single word demand actually worked in his favour, and a fresh, warm cup of coffee was returned to his hands. The milk carton came next, slammed down across the table for him as Sentinel sat down himself to wait for the rest of the pot to fill.

               “Do you know what your problem is Optimus?” Optimus didn’t want to know what his problem was, but he made eye contact as he reached for the milk anyways. It was a mistake, Sentinel continued. “Your problem is that you care too much.”

               About the classes _he_ was paying his own way through.

               “You got me.” Optimus deadpanned. “That’s my big problem.” Milk into coffee, and with the first sip he began to feel alive again. It was a shame coffee didn’t pay rent.

               “No I mean it, you’re gonna kill yourself running around all the time like that.” Sentinel leaned across the table and Optimus knew it was coming: “You should be more like me.”

               “Oh, please—“

               “See, _I_ ,” another point back to himself and Sentinel boasted a grin, “never let the details of a last minute project bog me down.”

               Last minute, that was a laugh. Every single one of Sentinel’s projects ended up being last minute in one way or another. “What are you just going to rehash an old project from freshman year again?” It wouldn’t have been the first time; Optimus wasn’t done with the sarcasm, but he was done with editing the same paragraph for the fifth or sixth time in a row.

               “Not even close.” A pass across to the chair next to him to rummage through his bag and Sentinel returned with a familiar camera, blinking to life and pointed directly at Optimus. “Don’t bother to smile, just give me something I can work with.”

               Unbelievable.


	16. 1.40 -- Fragile; Strongarm/Sideswipe

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The only goal I had for this one was to beat up Sides, but it ended up being a lot more about Strongarm. Which I'm actually really satisfied with because I love Strongarm. 
> 
> So yeah there's some mentioned violence in this but it's mostly the aftermath. He got beat up.

Midnight. According to her chronometer – set to the local weather stations satellites for the most proficient accuracy available for the area – it was six minutes past 12:00. That meant she had been looking for her errant teammate for the better part of an hour, and with no comms coming through. Strongarm wasn’t going to lie about being worried, Steeljaw’s crew of criminals had been exceptionally aggressive as of late. Thunderhoof had taken it upon himself to make an _example_ out of Sideswipe, but he was only going to find himself back in a stasis cell for his trouble. Of that Strongarm was sure, even if Bumblebee hadn’t let her stay as backup for the actual fight. Sideswipe wasn’t answering his comms, and that wasn’t a good sign.

               Every part of the forest looked the same at night, and with how many times they’d been through it even Strongarm’s scanners weren’t proving much use. All of it was familiar and none of it remarkable. The smear of energon glowing back at her from the dusty ground however… That was a new addition.

               “Sideswipe?”

               Strongarm peered through the lines of trees looking for the shine of Sideswipe’s red finish, what she got was a rustle of leaves from the right instead. Bingo.

               “Sideswipe do you know how much harder it is to find you when you don’t answer your commlink? Why weren’t you...” She trailed off of her own volition when she got a good look at him. Strongarm had seen Sideswipe get knocked around before, but not like this. Broken and bruised and curled up against the trunk of a tree he must have dragged himself to, he was very nearly shaking with rattling vents and looked the picture of misery. There was energon everywhere, but Strongarm couldn’t tell where he was bleeding from or how much there really way, she couldn’t tell much from his hidden face and defensive curl. He looked hurt. Really hurt.

               “Sideswipe?” She tried again. There wasn’t any written protocols on how to address an injured teammate that Strongarm knew of, only first aid procedures and those she was not qualified to give yet.

               Sideswipe only shifted enough to get a glimpse of her pedes before looking away again. “I’m fine.” Abrupt. They both heard his voice crack but Sideswipe was the only one who flinched from it, clearing out his vocaliser with a burst of static before trying again. “Just… Just go back and tell Bee I’m fine. I’ll meet you at base.”

               “You know I can’t do that.” She couldn’t. It wasn’t within protocol to leave an injured teammate behind, but Strongarm was beginning to realise that this wasn’t the best time for reciting regulations. Aside from the hitching of his vents Sideswipe was hardly moving; this wasn’t normal, it wasn’t what Strongarm was used to dealing with. She stood with her servos locked at her sides and her sense of duty confused as to which action to take. He wasn’t moving.

               Strongarm only got halfway through wishing Bumblebee had been present – he always knew what to do – before the lieutenant commed in himself. Talk about timing.

               [Strongarm, have you found him yet?] 

For Bumblebee the team always came first, and that was more than enough to spring Strongarm back into action. “Yes sir, he’s with me. We’re coming back to base now.” Spoken instruction was as important as example in any situation, and Bumblebee’s relieved confirmation only evidence that her work was not over yet. Strongarm kneeled down to her teammate and placed her servo on his shoulder as she spoke. The action served its purpose; Sideswipe was at least looking up at her now, with the white of his faceplates more purple and blue from the fractured energon lines behind them. His optics kept darting to the servo on his shoulder like he didn’t know what to make of it, he must have scratched one too given the way he kept shuttering them.

               “I could’ve had him you know. If I had a proper weapon on me…” It was almost a relief to hear the punk trying to explain his problems away like normal, it would have been if it had carried through to his voice. It didn’t. And it took until he started brushing at his optics with the back of his servo before Strongarm realised he was crying. This was more emotion than she knew how to handle. “When are we going to get decepticon hunters that actually hunt _properly_?!”

Frustration was going to get them nowhere. Strongarm shouldered Sideswipe’s arm under her frame and pulled them both to a stand. He winced when he straightened his leg and she felt like she had accidentally kicked a turbo-puppy.

“Can you walk?” It really didn’t look like it.

               Sideswipe scrubbed the energon off his lip and made no effort to move away. “I’m fine.” He kept his optics glued in front of them like it was the only thing keeping him together. It might have been.

               “Alright, well when we get back to base I’ll be sure to tell Bumblebee all about how you walked back on your own.” It was supposed to be a quip, but Strongarm didn’t let it reach her voice. She _was_ an officer on duty after all.

               And sometimes it was nicer to take the high road, the one armed squeeze that Sideswipe gave her in return could have almost been gratitude.

               “Don’t tell anyone?”

               Strongarm smiled. “Of course not.”


	17. 1.50 -- The End; Rodimus/Blurr

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is entirely based off of an Au prompt post off of tumblr. I thought it was cute.   
> So physically the au for this is as humanoid as you can get without making them human. So they're still robots but that's more or less all they share with canon au, they eat food and wear clothes and junk. I always find it more fun to play that way than in a fully humanoid au. Also because they still have their pretty robot colours and helm designs and whathaveyou.

“Stop right there!” He stopped halfway over the fence and less than a foot away from his prize. “Stop right there, I’ve caught you red handed and you know I have so don’t even bother running because I guarantee I will catch you.”

              A slender blue bot popped out behind a row of bushes from where he’d been… hiding? Gardening? He looked a little too young and a lot too pretty to be wasting his time looking after a bunch of plants, even with the accusatory pointing. One had to wonder just how authentic that threat was.

              “Hey, I’m kind of in a hurry. Don’t rat me out, ‘kay?” A quick wink and his best smile and Rodimus stretched his servo closer to the flowers he was trying to swipe. He only needed a few anyways.

              The bot below him was not amused. “Rat you out to who exactly? Those are my flowers you keep stealing from me.”

              Oh.

              He continued: “And last time you nearly took every bloom!”

              “Last time I was in a hurry too.” Not ideal. Now was probably a good time to get moving, flowers in hand or no. Stretching himself back up to his full height Rodimus shifted to hop back off the second board of the fence he was currently balanced on. His company must have known what he was planning because he dropped his tiny shovel (trowel? Is that what it was called?) and zipped over to the fence to head him off faster than Rodimus had honestly thought possible.

Okay then, no running. He’d have to try for pacification instead. “Look, I’m sorry it’s an issue, but I don’t have a very long lunch break and honestly your garden has the prettiest flowers on the entire street.” Flattery never hurt either; especially when it was based in truth.

Of course it would help more if the blue bot were actually buying it. Instead he just smirked like he’d caught a glitchmouse in a trap. Truth be told it was a good look for him. “You don’t even know what type of flowers those are.”

              Well he could try. Rodimus studied the blossoms in question. “… Red ones?”

              “They’re peonies, and nice try but do you know what that fence that you’re standing on is for? Of course you do, it’s obvious, it’s to keep people from taking that which isn’t theirs – as well as in response to an incident with some punks down the street – and you’d better hope this mech of yours is special enough to warrant the repeated theft of my peonies.”

              His what? Rodimus blinked twice; the bot in front of him kept talking.

              “In fact I think I want to meet this bot of yours myself, that way you can look them straight in the optics and tell them just where you’ve been getting their flowers from since you’re too cheap to buy them evidently.”

              He wanted to meet him. In a way – a certain way – it was hilarious, so Rodimus agreed. “Alright, you can tell him yourself if you want to, I’m sure he’d be on your side.” He climbed fully over the fence without even snagging his pant-legs and dropped onto the ground beside the bot to give him a smile. It wasn’t an innocent smile. “But the whole thing will work better if I actually have some flowers to give him, don’t you think?”

              The bot scowled. “I’ll get you some lilac.”

              A few minutes with the pruning shears later (this time he’d just asked what the little plant scissors were called) and Rodimus was halfway down the street with white flowers in tow and his new guest beside him. He could tell the bot was getting curious as to where they were going, they’d passed all the café’s and diners already, but decided it would be more fun to let him figure it out himself.

              The bot’s blue plating really was gorgeous in the sun; he pursed his lips as he looked between the houses and shops they passed and Rodimus couldn’t help but give him another wink. Regardless of whether or not it was appreciated.

              “So what’s this date of yours like anyways?”

              What a question. “Well there’s not many people like him.” Rodimus answered truthfully. “He’s really strict and I don’t think I’ve ever actually seen him smile, but once you get passed all that… you can see he’s always there for you…” He coughed as his vocaliser caught static and passed a servo over his faceplates quickly. Too close for comfort. “I’m Rodimus by the way.”

              “Blurr.” Cute name. Blurr was peering ahead of them like he was trying to figure something out. “And where are you meeting?” He was suspicious and that was also a good look for him.

              “Just at the end of the street.”

              There was only one thing at the end of the street. The look Blurr shot him was almost good enough to be framed. “You don’t have a date at all, do you?” Rodimus’ retort of ‘not unless you count yourself’ went unheeded. It went unheeded because he didn’t even get the chance to say it before Blurr cut him off again with a smack to the shoulder. “You could have told me you were going to the cemetery!”

              “I could have.” Rodimus agreed. He held his flowers up in defense lest Blurr try to whack him again. “But this was more fun. You can still come with if you want, company’s nice.”

              The embarrassment was still evident in Blurr’s faceplates, but he followed along anyways.

* * *

 

              It didn’t take long to get there, into the heart of the graveyard where the markers spread out in long rows not orderly enough to satisfy all who lay beneath them. Rodimus brought Blurr to one, neither modest in size nor engravings, and gave it a fond tap with his servo. “Meet Ultra Magnus. He was kind of like a dad or something to me, well I’m sure a lot of people could say that, but you get the picture.” Truth be told, he had never liked the idea of gathering at gravesites to mourn over the dead; it was too depressing. When Ultra Magnus had joined the well he had started dropping by from time to time to say hello regardless. Sometimes it was nice, usually it was sad.

              Rodimus smiled. “Just so you know, he would have given me twice the amount of hell for stealing flowers than you did.” The white lilacs Blurr had given him were nice though, and went beside some yellow whatevers someone else must have dropped by recently.

              “Oh don’t worry about the flowers.” Pretty much anything could have been going through Blurr’s mind, but he looked more thoughtful than uncomfortable. He waved Rodimus away with a quick servo and scanned the lines of the gravestone like they could answer his questions. “Just buy them from now on, alright?”

              “Are you kidding? Do you have any idea how much flowers cost?” It only took one look from Blurr for Rodimus to realise that of course he knew, he _grew_  them.

He was cute.

              And Rodimus wasn’t one to give up the chance his old mentor had so graciously granted him.

              “On second thought, do you have any idea how much coffee costs either? Because I could show you.”


	18. 1.60 -- Three; Blurr/Rodimus

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is just a quick follow up to The End that I never posted in the summer because ???? I have no idea. 
> 
> Anyways, I'd better get this posted and out of the way so I can string all my bw drabbles onto this fic chain next.

               “You’re here early.” Blurr hardly looked up from where he was weeding a patch of his annuals, he didn’t need to Rodimus was usually loud and flashy enough to announce his own entrance. “I thought you weren’t going to be off for another few hours at least.”

               “Yeah, I left early. No big deal.” For once Rodimus didn’t jump the gate into the front yard and it latched behind him again with a slam that was probably harder than he had meant it to be. Blurr didn’t have to look to catch the grin on his faceplates; it was evident through his tone alone, and he raised his optics to meet the others.

               “Are you planning something again Rodimus, because I— What’s that behind your back? What are you holding?”

               It was green. And leafy. And Rodimus held it out in front of him like he’d won a major trophy.

               “It’s for you!”

               Blurr sat back at a kneel to look at the gift in question. “It’s a tomato plant.” It was. Bright and green and growing happily out of a cheap little plastic pot. It was already too big for its home, and Blurr had to wonder from where he’d gotten it.

               If anything the grin on Rodimus’ face only got brighter. “And you said I couldn’t grow anything. Look it’s even got a little baby tomato on it!” He sat down beside Blurr so he could better show off his plant and turned it around until he spotted the little green bulb of a tomato that had started growing. There were two more tiny blossoms beside it too; it was doing pretty well. “See? That tomato has hamburger written all over it.” Pride.

               “You grew it yourself?” It wasn’t that it was unbelievable, tomato plants were both durable and forgiving even for the most inexperienced gardener (which was more or less a perfectly apt description of are-you-sure-this-isn’t-a-weed-it-doesn’t-have-any-flowers Rodimus). However this one was… different. Different at least than what he figured Rodimus was expecting out of his prize.

               “Yeah, I even brought the seeds to prove it to you.” Rodimus was a lot of things, but a green thumb wasn’t one of them. However it only took a couple of nanokliks of shuffling to produce a packet of seeds from his back pocket. He handed them off to Blurr still boasting about his little plant. “This is 100% certified Rodimus tomato plant by the way, you’re getting a treasure; it’s like my baby. I’m gonna name him Hot Rod.”

               Well that made sense. Blurr looked over the seed packet before dropping it beside his gardening tools to take the plant out of Rodimus’ servos. “You did a good job.” He leaned forward to kiss him over the leaves of the plant and laughed. “Hot Rod is a cherry tomato plant, you’re going to have a hard time putting them on burgers. Come on, we can transplant him into the back garden if you want.”  

               Rodimus stared at him from garden to the front door. “What the hell is a cherry tomato?”


	19. 000 -- Impression; Terrorsaur/Waspinator (sort of)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I was going to make a separate fic for all of my beast wars ficlets, but I only have 4 so it was looking kind of lackluster. I told myself that it'd get better as I added more, but lets be realistic. At this point in time I have no idea if I ever actually will add more. So. Until I have 8 bw ficlets they're all gonna stay here. Get ready (hopefully) cause man do I love beast wars. 
> 
> Anyways this is the very first thing I ever wrote for the show, so it's basically just me getting a feel for characters (also I miss Terrorsaur).   
> Slight warning for a bat getting eaten.

                He swooped through the air in what _had_ to be a graceful arch, intersecting the dingy bat right in its erratic flight path and flipping the stupid thing between his beak. It was a perfect catch of course (because he was knew what he was doing, duh) and Terrorsaur landed beside his comrade to show off even further.             

               “Did ypfou thee thabt?” It was hard to be smug with his beak full, so he issued the command to transform and grabbed the little bat in the claws of his servos instead. “You oughta learn how to hunt too,” Terrorsaur laughed, “it’s almost an embarrassment to be seen with a scavenger.”

               Waspinator hardly looked up from the tree he was attached to, cutting patiently into the bark in search of an untapped vein.

               “Nyuuuu, Waspinator not want to hunt! Ptera-bot no better than the spiders!”

               What.

               That totally wasn’t true! Terrorsaur paused with his meal dangling helplessly above his mouth and growled. He did reconsider playing with his food this time around though. “Oh yeah? Well at least I don’t always make a _huge mess_ when I’m eating.” With a quick jerk of his helm he ripped the bat’s wing off between his jaws and crunched it in half. The little creature was squealing in earnest now, but it wasn’t like he has some sick perversion with it like Tarantulas did. See? Totally not as bad as the spiders.

               “Megatron won’t let you use the console anymore because you always gum it up.” Down went the wing and the rest of the bat went next.

               “Sap is sticky! It not Waspinator’s fault.”

               “It’s your fault for picking such a loser beast mode.” He was talking with his mouth full, but Terrorsaur wasn’t sure Waspinator would have heard him anyways. At that moment the insect had finally found what he was looking for and hummed a happy little trill before attacking the tree with a new ferocity. All mandibles and proboscis… disgusting. Terrorsaur sucked an errant bone from between his teeth and spat it in Waspinator’s direction with a sneer.

               “If you get your wings stuck together again I’m not helping you this time.”

               Waspinator didn’t care. He sung happily over his sticky sap dinner again, pulling back to pass his forearms over his optics so that he could slurp the sap off them as well. “So?” Waspinator had his own brand of snark. “If Ptera-bot choke on a bone Waspinator will dance on his grave.”

               Terrorsaur laughed, his high-pitched gasping cackle. “You’re full of slag!”


	20. 000 -- Command Not Found; Scorponok & Tarantulas

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I miss Scorponok.

               “Hey! You should be taking orders from me! I’m second in command!”

               “Are you?” Tarantulas’ question seemed genuine, complete with a tilt of his helm as he regarded Scorponok anew through his visor. It caught the scorpion off guard. Maybe he really didn’t know…

               “Wh—Yes!” Scorponok passed a pincer over his faceplating and shuffled in place. He had to be firm here, they’d walk all over him otherwise! “Megatron said so.” It was finite. It was done. Megatron’s orders were absolute.

               Tarantulas had been walking all over him for a long time already. His snicker of feigned ignorance was almost a believable one. Almost. “No…” His mandibles clicked with the hiss of his vocaliser. “No, I remember Terrorsaur taking command the last time Megatron was in pieces.”

               “Well he wasn’t supposed to!” Scorponok pointed at the spider in indignance, certain he was being deceived. “That was his fault anyways!” No one ever even listened to Terrorsaur!

               “Are you _sure_ you’re second in command then?”

               “Yes! I’m second in command!” Like a broken record. Blue pincers clicked in frustration and Scorponok fought the urge to just shoot the spider and be done with it. But that wasn’t what they were supposed to be doing, it wasn’t the mission.

               This time Tarantulas nodded. “Ohh,” arriving at his decision the arachnid nodded again, “so you’re Dinobot’s replacement.”

               What? “No! Or… wait—yes!” That wasn’t right! Or… Or maybe it was right. What was he getting at?

               “Yes?” Tarantulas’ voice raised at the end of the inflection. He was fishing for something.

               “Yes!” Whatever it was Scorponok wasn’t going to give it to him. “He was second in command but now _I’m_ second in command!” How many times did he have to say it? Tarantulas was doing this on purpose!

               The snickering from the scientist implied that he’d gotten what he wanted anyways. “Oh, but Dinobot has his own replacement now doesn’t he?” Tarantulas ignored the confused and agitated clicking of Scorponok’s claws. “Yes I clearly recall constructing a clone. Surely he’s Dinobot’s replacement.”

               “I—Well… maybe, but he never came back to base!” Scorponok rubbed at his helm in confusion. It made sense, the clone was built to be a direct replacement for Dinobot in the terms of the mission, but what did that have to do with the chain of command? He was getting a headache.

               Tarantulas did nothing to enlighten him, pulling an overdramatic sigh from his vocaliser in mock defeat. “Oh what a pity.” He snickered. “Then how am I supposed to take orders from him?”

               What? How did they get back to—“You’re not!” Scorponok groaned, frustrated. “You’re… You’re supposed to take orders from me!”

               “Because you were replaced by a clone?”

               “Because I’m second in command!”

               “So, command.” Tarantulas didn’t give him the opportunity to. With another gleeful giggle the arachnid transformed and scuttled off, muttering about projects and procedures. Scorponok could only stand there and watch him go, protests dying on his glossa as fast as his certainty of his role in the within the predacons was. He was… he was second in command, right? Megatron had said so!

               Somehow the helmache didn’t seem worth the trouble right now. He could have sworn there were tears in his optics.


	21. 000 -- Take Me Out To Dinner; Waspinator/Tarantulas (sort of)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Me and Hambone were talking about things one day and this is what it turned into. 
> 
> There's mild cannibalism in this, since that's Tarantulas' thing. But it's not graphic. The entire things just stupid and cute.

The first time was after a messy run in with the Maximals – or their blasters, more accurately. Waspinator had been putting himself back together for the better part of a cycle when he caught Tarantulas with one of his beast mode’s legs hanging partways out of his mouth.

Tarantulas had stared at him, slurping the rest of his leg up slowly before he cleared the static form his vocaliser. “I thought you were in the CR chamber.” He had stated, like a fact.

Waspinator had been at a loss for words.

 

The second time was Waspinator had woken up with two of Tarantulas’ eight legs prying his resting wing away from his body. Waspinator glared at him then, violet optics narrowing in the dark room as he buzzed in annoyance. The fact that he was very clearly awake was supposed to stop Tarantulas in his tracks. The spider snapped off the wing and scuttled away with it in his mouth.

Waspinator didn’t forget to lock his door after that.

 

The third time Waspinator was ready for it. He was prepared. He caught Tarantulas on the other end of his blaster before the arachnid could tear so much of a piece off him. But Waspinator didn’t fire. He’d been a predacon long enough to know when to make a deal.

“Spider-bot want a piece of Waspinator? Then Spider-bot have to do something for Waspinator first!”

Tarantulas stiffened. He was thinking it over. If he really wanted the scientist could easily overpower Waspinator, they both knew that, but was it worth it? It didn’t seem to be because after a moment’s deliberation he scoffed in annoyance.

“Fine.” Tarantulas acquiesced, lowering the servos he’d had raised in surrender. “What is it you want?”

Now that was more like it. Waspinator held his helm haughtily. “Spider-bot take Waspinator for a date first.”

“What! A date?!”

“A fancy date.” He felt the need to specify, to take as much as he could from the situation. Tarantulas faltered for a moment, mandibles twitching nervously, or maybe it was just hungrily, before he sighed again in defeat.

“Alright, fine. One date.”

“Spider-bot picks Waspinator up at 6.”

This time it was Tarantulas who was at a loss for words.

 

There was a glade on the outskirts of Predacon territory, opposite the direction from the Maximal base. Waspinator had never seen it before – he would have remembered it if he had – but Tarantulas hoarded secrets like he hoarded all of his other possessions, he’d probably known about the place for months.

Waspinator was in his element, fluttering through the greenery to look at this flower and that like he didn’t have a care in the world. The glade was full of them after all, lush and blooming and undisturbed from the war around it. It was peaceful. He liked it.

“Nyuuu~” Waspinator crooned happily, enjoying himself. “Spider-bot has been hiding pretty meadow all to himself!”

“Yes, well. You never know when something might become useful.” Tarantulas has remained aloof for the better part of their date, hoping to fulfill his side of the bargain as quickly as possible. Waspinator didn’t mind. But now the spider leered closer, drawing an arm around Waspinator’s shoulder and tugging lightly at the organic parts of his exoskeleton.

“I thought you might find it… fancy.” The look behind Tarantulas’ optics was positively ravenous, but Waspinator broke into laughter at the sight of it.

Tarantulas had brought a gift when he’d picked him up. Tarantulas had dressed up in a bow-tie and taken Waspinator to a place he thought he’d like. Waspinator didn’t care about Tarantulas, but he did like to be treated like he was something special, and in those regards he hadn’t been disappointed in the slightest.

Waspinator shot his date a knowing look. “Spider-bot must really want a piece of Waspinator.”

The pretense dropped. “I don’t ask about your hobbies.” Tarantulas gestured to the flowers around them before tapping Waspinator on his arm again, much more pointedly. “I believe we had a deal.”

They had. After a few moments of shuffling Waspinator popped his own arm off and held it out for Tarantulas, smile still bright behind his mandibles. “Waspinator tastes good, hmm?”

“Unbelievably so.” Tarantulas had his creepy servos over the proffered piece no slower than Waspinator offered it. He was all but cackling in delight, which meant he had gotten what he wanted, and Waspinator took to the air before he could decide he wanted more.

“Waspinator gets to choose date next time!”

 

 

 


	22. 000 -- Empath; Rampage

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Don't love this, kind of hate it. Concept? Good. Execution? Bad.

The Predacons were becoming a problem he could no longer bide his time with.

An understatement, even as Rampage collapsed against the rubble of the sunken Maximal ship – ventilations heavy as they cycled through air, salt water, and the steady brew of his building rage.

The clone was at his spark again. He could feel it. The peripheral presence of vulnerability that accompanied a spark exposed – even an inextinguishable one – and so familiar to the set up Megatron had held him under before.

He should have killed him then. Back when his spark had still been free to reclaim. Megatron had been clever enough to never grant him so much as the opportunity and now, with his spark locked behind the chestplates of another slavering toadie, his chances of removing himself from their company was growing ever smaller. Rampage cursed them; he growled, he seethed, he hated. He groaned when claws cut into his core like ice. Encircling him, presenting him; a leash he’d been forcibly tethered to.

His spark in the hands of Dinobot II fared far worse than it had when embedded with Megatron’s shards of energon. His spark in the hands of both of them, however – Physically. Now. He could feel the both them on him now – was becoming nothing short of a nightmare. Individually their control over him had been cold, impersonal, excruciatingly painful. Together... Rampage slumped further against the husk of the forgotten ship and forced dark water through his systems once more, unable to supress it, helpless to avoid it, spitting in vitriol.

Pain he could handle. He enjoyed it, Rampage had told himself. He was a monster of pain. Born of the agony of a twisted spark, enduring of it all. Inflicting, devouring; he subsisted off the pain of others, he delighted in it – bought and received ad infinitum since his creation. Pain, even excruciating, was nothing more than the same catalyst that had brought his very spark online. It sustained him. But this… this was not pain, no matter how it was born in the core of his spark.

The clone had to go. He’d devour him. He’d rip him limb from wretched limb and delight in the terror that radiated off his spark – his _own_ spark – in waves. If such a sorry creature were even capable of the feelings, the clone’s emotions were shallow but getting stronger. They muddled his own. He’d destroy him for that too.

It wasn’t pain, though it propagated tight and intense.

It wasn’t pain, though it blossomed through his frame the way the stab of raw energon always had.

Rampage writhed under the pressure of it, thrashing silenced by the weight of the ocean as his servos scrabbled to reach his own spark – and somewhere, elsewhere diligent fingers danced against it. They pulled against him, dragging guttural moans out of the clone, echoes of his own furious cries. He’d kill them. He’d kill them both. He’d rip them to pieces, he’d eat them alive, he’d tear his own spark apart to be rid of their presence, the influence he found himself under.

He’d never be given the opportunity. Not now that his spark had been passed off to Megatron’s mindless lackey; mindless, but not without feeling, not without thoughts or desire and Rampage privy to it all. It’s not pain, but it’s torture simmering under his plating and crawling through his core. There’s no escape from the unwanted pleasure, the pressure, the insistent unignorable need that pulls damnation from his mouth, and release like a wave through his spark. Bliss. Soured but strong.

He hadn’t known it could feel like that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bet that's the first time he's been touched like that. Honestly, though.
> 
>  
> 
> Sometimes you just need to write a thing man. And then you're not satisfied with that thing. And then you get frustrated because you /swear/ it was a good thing when you thought it up. And then you don't want to post it but you still do because even if you didn't do a good job there's only one 100 word drabble that even touches on this subject are you kidding me i need more than that? I need, like, a textbook. All about Rampage. Just various aspects of Rampage and how he works, emotionally physically mentally. Socially! For an expensive dinner he sure is iiiinteresting.


End file.
